Reflecting upon my use of Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance to discuss the definition of quality, I wondered if my support of his grading experiment might have been an early predictor of my involvement in the arts.

It seems to me that a person who valued insightful comments on their papers might be more likely to gravitate toward professions that provided more intangible rewards like esteem and self-actualization rather than high pay and material perks. On the other hand, I wonder if people who valued a specific letter or numeric grade over extensive commentary might be more likely to join professions with clearer remuneration.

I did a brief search for studies that might have examined this and didn’t find anything. I suspect the failure to do so is more a factor of not knowing what terms to use in a search than lack of research related to this topic.

About three years ago I included a Harvard Business Review article about the single perfect customer satisfaction survey question in an entry about customer service. (How willing would you be to recommend company X to a friend?)

I would be interested to know if there is any research out there that might support the dependability of using a single question to determine if someone in high school or college was disposed toward a career in the non-profit field based on what form of feedback they valued most on their assignments.

If there was a correlation between preferred form of feedback and profession, perhaps the perfect career path question might be: “What do you find more valuable in assessing the progress of your academic career, a letter/numeric grade or extensive written/verbal feedback?”

Does anyone know of research studies that might prove or disprove this notion?